Takeoff: New Discoveries of Rescue Team J
by Quillinx
Summary: Rescue Team J and its new members, Cyndaquil and Zorua, are beginning a happy new life together. However, trouble won't leave them alone, as proven when Buizel gets called back to Sinnoh Home to help fix Sirai's inexplicable glitches. Could Team J finally be finding out Sirai's secret... or could they be losing her forever? Sequel to Kickstart: The Adventures of Rescue Team J
1. Chapter 1 -- Glitches

**heyyy**

**it's rio & quill back with our sequel to Kickstart: The Adventures of Rescue Team J. If you haven't read that, this story won't make much sense x"D s/9320531/1/Kickstart-The-Adventures-of-Rescue-Team-J**

**sorry it took me so long to post this! x_x i've been having life issues hurrr but finally, the first chapter is up!**

**hope you enjoy~**

* * *

As usual, Eevee was the first to hear the ring of the video phone. Again, as usual, she didn't go to answer it, instead allowing Zorua to barrel past her as she sorted the mail from yesterday. The Dark-type seemed to obtain a strange glee from being the first to greet visitors, and Eevee didn't begrudge her that quirk. She smiled a little, but only once she was sure the Dark-type had disappeared down the hallway.

It had now been two weeks since Cyndaquil and Zorua had joined Rescue Team J, and Eevee had to unwillingly admit to herself that she had never been happier. It wasn't quite like having Buizel all to herself, or … She shook the thought out of her head, as she was accustomed to doing. _Not going to think about that, not now. _She hated to admit to herself that her past still bothered her. _This is me now, this is my life!_ she reminded herself, jerking her mind forcefully back to happier topics.

The two kids had taken to adventuring like Water-types to a swimming pool, and although none of their excursions since they had joined had been quite as thrilling and dangerous as the Zoroark rescue mission, Eevee had noticed the extra spark and fervor the two kids had added to the most normal jobs.

Buizel seemed happier as well, too, she thought, tossing a piece of junk mail into the wastebasket absently. He loved to joke around and play with the kids, especially Cyndaquil, who liked to listen to him talk about new technologies. Eevee herself preferred to practice battle moves with Zorua outside the base, but she was glad that Buizel had finally found someone willing to hear him out.

All in all, she was happy, she decided, stacking the jobs she and Buizel would go over later on the counter. The team had planned a berry-picking excursion that afternoon, which would end with lunch at Zoroark's house in the woods. Eevee was looking forward to it, although initially she had grumbled.

"Hey? Eevee?" The Normal-type perked up, snapping out of her thoughts, as she heard her name being called. Cyndaquil poked his head around the door. "Buizel wants you…"

Eevee tilted her head. Why would Buizel want her? Maybe the callers were important. She stood up and followed Cyndaquil down the hall curiously.

Buizel was in what had recently become the "workroom". Basically, they'd taken the room that Cyn and Zorua had flooded, cleaned it up, and started shoving tech in there. He was often found in the room fixing things that had been broken, or just tinkering. The Water-type was currently talking on the video phone.

"I don't see why I have to! I never even worked in that division!" he exclaimed.

Rio was on the other end, more weary-looking than the cheerful Pokémon should've been. "I know, but the higher-ups are calling in anyone who has tech knowledge and experience with Sirai."

"There aren't any glitches here!" Buizel shot back.

Rio sighed tiredly and replied. "Just come, please." The call ended.

Buizel kicked the crystal growth next to the video phone, the same one that had grown to block the flood. He then rubbed his foot and berated himself for doing something Eevee would've done.

Eevee just stood in the hallway, shocked._ Buizel never acts like this_! She stared at her partner, who didn't look at her, Zorua, or Cyndaquil, choosing instead to stare at the floor angrily. Cyndaquil and Zorua stood off to the side, looking like they didn't know what to do.

Eevee stepped forward. "Hey, what's going on here?" she said, directing the question to the group in general.

Buizel sat on the ground and leaned against the wall, his arms crossed irritably. "They've called me back to Sinnoh Home."

Eevee gaped for several seconds.

"W-what?!" she spluttered, actually taking a step back. "They did what?!" Several disconnected thoughts raced each other through her head at the same time. "That's not funny, Buizel," she said testily, glaring at Cyndaquil and Zorua as if expecting one of them to shout "April Fool's!".

Buizel shook his head dejectedly. "Not a joke." He stood up and said. "I need to get there within two days or they're shutting us down."

After the door closed and Buizel left the room, Sirai spoke up. "I guess this is a bad time to make a joke-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k~" The lights, which were glowing white globes that hung from the ceiling, flickered on and off in time with the AI's stuttering voice, which crackled into static before silencing completely. All power in the base had been cut off. The only light came from Sirai's crystals, which had their own natural luminescence.

Zorua was the first to voice everyone's thoughts. "What the heck?!"

* * *

Outside in the hallway, Buizel noticed the lights flickering and cutting out. There was a crystal growth on the wall a foot away from the door he'd just exited, casting it's illumination out about a yard. Fortunately, there was a window carved out nearby, letting in the sunlight and brightening the area considerably. Buizel immediately turned back around and pounded on the door, yelling. "Hey! You guys okay?"

"We're fine!" came Eevee's voice from the other side. "It's really dark in here!"

"What happened?" Cyndaquil's scared voice piped.

"Are _you_ okay?!" yelled Eevee. A clattering sound indicated that she was yanking on the old-fashioned doorknob, apparently with no success. "The door won't open!" she reported with a hint of growing panic in her voice.

Zorua's irritated voice was heard next. "Stupid power cut!" At that moment, everything turned on again and the automated door slid open. The three Pokémon inside the room quickly ran out, letting the door close behind them. Buizel glanced at one end of the hall and looked at the other where the staircase was.

"This is odd. It shouldn't be possible…" he muttered, following a disturbing train of thought. "The base…power cut… impossible…"

Zorua scowled and exclaimed. "What is it?! Just explain it already!"

Buizel shook his head and replied. "Complicated. Easier to show you, but first-Sirai!"

The chipper AI responded as usual. "What's up? Something the matter?" At the group's blank and disbelieving stares, she asked. "What? Glameow got your tongue?"

_How could she have not noticed a power cut?_ Zorua wondered.

"Sirai," Buizel began. "What just happened?"

Sirai somewhat confusedly, but still very snarkily, replied. "Er, well, Eevee was pounding on that door so the motion sensor opened it, and then those three ran out of that workroom, and then you started talking, and then you yelled 'Sirai!', and then-"

Buizel cut her off. "Yeah, we get that, but what was the power cut?"

There was a brief pause. "Power cut? There wasn't a power cut." she said with complete certainty. "Nothing happened with the system-I think I'd know, I kinda live in it. Well, partially, at any rate. Mostly I'm at Sinnoh Home, but I like it here."

That response sidetracked Zorua and sent her imagination whirling away. _Oooh! I wonder what it's like to live in a computer system thingy… Hmmm, I'll ask Sirai later._

Eevee blinked and then looked at Buizel for advice. _How could Sirai not have noticed that she just completely- went haywire?_

"You didn't notice… anything?" she asked disbelievingly. "Like… we're standing in different places. Sirai, don't you remember? How d'you think we got in that workroom in the first place? Do you remember us going in there…?" She trailed off, hoping that Sirai would realize something.

Sirai paused, obviously confused.

"I don't know… I wasn't paying attention," she said in a frustrated voice. She then seemed to become angry and hurt. "Are you guys trying to trick me or something? It's not very funny, you know." The AI's screen flickered out, Sirai apparently being done with talking.

The four Pokémon looked at each other in stunned confusion. Then, Buizel tried to talk to Sirai again. "Sirai? You okay? Sorry if we upset you, but… this isn't a trick. Something happened."

Sirai's screen didn't pop back up into existence, but her voice was heard in the hallway, coming from somewhere that Buizel would probably be able to explain away but no one else understood. "I don't know if this is a trick or not, but it isn't very nice." she said harshly, an upset tone in her voice. "You don't know what it's like, you'll never know what it's like-to be glitching!"

Buizel muttered under his breath. "Looks like Sinnoh Home was right… glitches in Sirai's system… and she's upset about it…"

Sirai-sobbed? Was that a crying sound? She almost seemed to take a deep breath before continuing. "I'm sorry I lashed out like that… It's just… At Sinnoh Home, they've partially shut me down because of glitching, but… I never thought the problems would follow me to rescue bases." She started yelling. "And the glitches! I hate them! I'm there one second and next thing I know time's passed without me! I get left behind against my will… and I never know what happened! I hate it! Once is enough, but now they're happening again and again!"

_Sirai's really upset…_ Buizel thought, _And if Quill and Rio are right, these glitches have been happening on and off in different areas for the past three weeks._

Cyndaquil looked worried, while Eevee simply looked lost. None of the team had ever heard Sirai yell before; the sound crackled and warped like the system wasn't supposed to take that much noise. And what use would there be for an AI to shout, anyways? Eevee decided there wasn't enough time to think about it. She turned to Buizel desperately, hoping he could do something, but before she could say anything the base was plunged into darkness again.

It didn't last very long, maybe five seconds, tops. Not long enough for anyone to say anything, anyway. Everything lit up again and Sirai's holoscreen appeared. "It happened again, didn't it…" she said shakily. It wasn't a question.

Buizel began walking to the stairs as he said to Sirai. "Can you let us into the root system?"

Sirai didn't answer verbally, instead nodding the holoscreen up and down.

Zorua irritatedly exclaimed. "Hold on, what the heck is going on?!"

Buizel made a motion with his arm to get them to follow him down the stairs as he explained. "You see those crystals?" He pointed at a cluster at the base of the staircase as they passed it. He didn't wait for an answer. "They grow as part of this tree. Leaves absorb sunlight, and some of it is always passed onto the crystal system. The crystals are based down in the roots of this tree." They were on the ground floor now, and Buizel was walking towards the slide entrance.

"Uh, where's this going?" Zorua asked, confused.

"To the root system." Buizel answered. The small crystal clusters on either side of the slide blinked twice, and then the ground between them shifted open to reveal another, secret slide.

Eevee stepped up to the hole and peered inside.

"I've never seen this before," she remarked, jumping in. The rest of the team followed.

The tunnel was dark. Eevee could feel the surprisingly smooth surface rushing beneath her as the four Pokémon zoomed through the slide.

"This is really long," she yelled to Buizel. "When is it going to end?" Before Buizel had a chance to reply, Eevee found herself being unceremoniously dumped into a large room.

No one spoke for a moment, instead completely shocked by their surroundings. The large room was really more of an enormous cavern. The shape of it was like a hemisphere, but the walls were rough and damp rock. The floor was soft dirt, a little dry, but smooth and brown. What really caught their attention was in the center of the cavern. It was an enormous crystal cluster, shaped almost like a flower, jutting up about ten feet. It was the same blue-green crystal that grew throughout their base, but this one was clearly the root of them all. The cluster's soothing glow was enough to light up the entire cavern, not brightly, but enough to see everything by.

Eevee blinked.

"So this is the root system, huh?" she said slowly.


	2. Chapter 2 -- Heartbeat

**next chapter up! ^ v ^**

**if you can spot the notsosubtle doctor who references that rio put in here, you are amazing and you may have a virtual pepperidge farm cookie. u v u**

* * *

Buizel nodded. "Yep. This is the root of the crystal system in our base. Any place with base crystals has one of these rooms somewhere."

Eevee nodded, looking around.

"I can't believe none of us ever knew about this place," whispered Cyndaquil in awe to Zorua.

Zorua whispered back to Cyndaquil. "Buizel did."

"Well, obviously… but I meant, like, the rest of us." Cyndaquil looked around at the intricate crystals in the room.

Zorua frowned for a moment. It didn't seem right to exclude Buizel from 'us'. Trying to get her mind off that track of thought, she asked the question they'd all been wondering.

"What're we doing here?"

Buizel answered. "Checking Sirai's connection to the base. Sirai?"

The AI answered, her child-like voice ringing all around the cavern, echoing off of walls with the crystals themselves seemingly acting as speakers. "Yeah?" The echoes of that one word seemed eerie, accompanied by the sound of dripping water somewhere.

"How's the connection?" The Water-type asked.

"Meh." Sirai responded. "Not good or bad." The giant crystal cluster pulsed with light once. "No regular HEARTBEAT, but that's because Sinnoh Home shut most of my system down to fix the glitches."

"Yeah, I noticed that." Buizel replied. "A few days without the system won't matter though."

"Without what?" asked Eevee, tilting her head. "A heartbeat?" She now had no idea what Buizel and Sirai were talking about. With a little huff, she sat down and looked away, the picture of irritation.

Cyndaquil felt a bit overwhelmed too. Although exploring with Team J had made him a bit braver and more eager to explore new things, he was still pretty timid by nature.

"What's wrong with Sirai, then?" he dared to ask. "If the connection's not that bad." The thought that something might be wrong with his friend scared him, a sharp and unpleasant reminder that Sirai- although friendly and giggly- was, in the end, only a piece of technology. He tried to force himself not to think about that.

Buizel decided to answer Eevee's question first with one of his beloved techno-rambles. "A HEARTBEAT- Heat and Energy Articulated Regulation, Time-Beat. It's what regulates the crystal system and keeps them from overgrowing or… well… exploding." He gave a little chuckle and shrugged, as if to say, _exploding. No biggie._ "

"Sinnoh Home's tech division has a bit of a record when it comes to exploding things…" Buizel continued. "So, a couple months ago, one bright techie had the idea to make a program that could regulate the… exploding. And so, that's what the HEARTBEAT system is. It's that pulse of light you saw earlier. Most of the time it beats regularly, like a metronome- or a slow heartbeat. Basically checks everything over and takes any excess heat or energy down in here, to prevent the exploding. We actually got the overhaul to get it installed just a week before we met you guys." Buizel nodded to Cyndaquil and Zorua.

Eevee rolled her eyes, while Cyndaquil glanced nervously from Zorua to Buizel. Nobody wanted to interrupt Buizel during one of his rambles, but at the same time nobody wanted to hear it. Cyndaquil shuffled his feet and decided that maybe he had asked a bad question.

Buizel frowned. "I suppose this is why they're calling everyone to Sinnoh Home. Sirai's glitching, and no one can find the problem. They've even called me in, and I only worked in Supply Division."

"Sirai's glitching?" asked Cyndaquil. Eevee rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Captain Obvious," she said sarcastically, glaring at Cyndaquil and then Buizel. "Did you see the lights go off just now? I suppose that was because Sirai's perfectly in order?" She huffed again and resumed her former distant attitude. Cyndaquil stared at her for a while before shaking himself and turning back to Buizel.

"That wasn't me," insisted Sirai, piping up again. "I swear I didn't do anything!"

"Well, then, who did it?" snapped Eevee, looking annoyed that she didn't have anyone solid to level a glare at. "You're an AI! Of course you wouldn't have consciousness if you glitched off, you're not…"

Real. But even Eevee sensed that that would be going over the line.

Apparently Sirai could guess, though, because she abruptly switched off, plunging the base into darkness again.

"Waah!" yelped Cyndaquil, stumbling and almost running into Zorua. "What-"

Eevee cursed a few times and looked around for a light switch.

"I didn't mean it that way, you know I didn't!" she yelled. "It's not fair to turn the lights off just because you're mad!" A short pause. "Sirai?! I said I didn't mean it! I'm sorry!"

The lights still didn't come on.

Cyndaquil fired up the flames on his back, the flickering light illuminating four worried faces.

"Ugh. Why can't we just go back up already?" Zorua whined.

Buizel moved away from the darkened crystals and back to the rest of the group, speaking to no one in particular, and perhaps to himself. "This isn't right. Those should still be glowing." He frowned at the crystal cluster, as if telling them off for not giving any illumination. "This isn't Sirai. Something's gone wrong, and it's worse than the glitches before."

Eevee, secretly relieved that her comment hadn't been the thing that had set Sirai off, kept silent.

"I think we should go back up," agreed Cyndaquil with Zorua. Having weird blackouts with no warning was creepy enough, but in a strange room they had never visited before, without Sirai? He shivered and stuck close to Buizel.

Buizel nodded, and with the consent of one of the older members of the rescue team, Zorua bounded over to the hole in the cavern wall that so much resembled the base's entrance/exit. There was a lever on the wall at near floor level. More of a switch, really, it bore a significant resemblance to the switches on Pokemon Hunter J's frozen Pokémon container. She flipped it, and the slide sucked her up and away.

"Wheee!" The gleeful interjection echoed around the cavern, bouncing off the walls eerily.

A shudder ran up Buizel's spine. He hardly ever came down to the heart of the crystal root system, but the room had always been lit warmly and cheerfully by the light of the crystals themselves, and with Sirai chatting to keep him company.

"Let's go." he said, walking over to the windy tunnel base and letting it bring him up to the ground floor. Cyn and Eevee followed after quickly.

Moments after they left, the large crystal cluster that was the heart of the root system gave off orange sparks. Just briefly, and for less than a second, but they sparked.

* * *

Eevee popped back up and looked around the base warily. The lights still hadn't come back on, and she felt her way nervously through the darkness.

Buizel called out. "Cyn? Can you light it up a bit?"

Cyndaquil lit up his flames, making sure not to catch any wood on fire. The base was illuminated with the orange, flickering light, making it look nothing like its usual cheerful self. It was eerie. Eevee shuddered and looked around again.

"How long until the lights come back on?" she asked anxiously.

Buizel shrugged, squinting to make out shapes in the dim lighting. "No idea. Blackout reports from other bases have said they lasted anywhere from a second to five days. There hasn't been much to go on though. Most bases don't trust Sirai and the crystal root system, and the problems with the ones that do have only been happening over the past three weeks."

Zorua whistled appreciatively. "That's some range of time. A second to five days."

"Five days with no power?" Eevee said dismally. "I'm so looking forward to that." She stood up and almost crashed into the wall.

* * *

"Well, it's been an hour," said Eevee, sounding tired. "How much longer d'you think Sirai will be down?" It was weird not to have the AI talking with Buizel, or telling Cyndaquil about some new thing in the news, or teasing Eevee. Much though she hated to admit it, the Normal-type was actually kind of beginning to miss her.

Cyndaquil sighed and yawned. It had been tough keeping his flames lit for a long period of time, so eventually they had resigned themselves to sitting in complete darkness. Cyndaquil wished that they had built more windows.

Buizel suddenly sat up from where he was leaning against the wall, right next to the entrance to the base. He stood and moved in front of it, scanning the room to no avail, thanks to the lack of light. "Guys? Where's Zorua?"

Suddenly, a loud "Whee!" echoed around the room, and Buizel turned his head to look behind him, only for the dark-type to zoom out of the slide and hit him, knocking the water-type down.

Zorua bounced on his back once, asking. "Hey, what'd I land on?"

Buizel groaned. "Me."

"Oh!" She leapt off and let Buizel get back to his feet. "Sorry." She didn't sound like she really meant it though, distracted by Cyndaquil and Eevee. "Come on! Just 'cause it's dark in here doesn't mean the sun went out! The slide is still working!"

Cyndaquil tilted his head. _Isn't she worried about Sirai at all? _He knew that Zorua had been close to the AI, often treating her just like she might treat Buizel, Zorua, or Cyndaquil himself. Now that Sirai was obviously not working right, he was a bit surprised that Zorua was so carefree. The more he thought about it, though, the more it made sense. _Maybe this is just the way Zorua deals with things. Buizel makes himself busy, Eevee sulks and worries, but Zorua… she laughs it off. _

He lit his flame a little, just enough to see Eevee rolling her eyes. Everybody instinctually looked towards the light for a second.

"Here, I'll play, Zorua," he offered.

"Finally." She grinned. "Someone's seeing sense."

The sassy, cheerful Dark-type flipped the lever that would activate the tunnel fan, and proceeded to leap into said tunnel, cackling with glee all the way. Cyndaquil sighed before diving after her in a resigned sort of way.

Buizel blinked in the darkness, trying to clear his vision of the bright spots left behind from looking at Cyn's brief lighting of the entrance cavern. He glanced in Eevee's direction, not being able to see her, but trying to check on her out of habit. He sighed. "I really wish I could stay, but I'll have better luck helping the rest of Sinnoh Home figure out this problem. And if I don't get there on time, they'll just cut everything off anyway. I ought to go now."

Eevee hung her head, glad that the darkness hid her.

"Yeah…" she trailed off, fidgeting with her paws. "You're right. You should go. We'll be fine," she added, a little bit too quickly, as if trying to reassure Buizel of something she wasn't entirely sure of herself.

But Buizel had already left through the tunnel slide, and he hadn't heard a word.

* * *

Up on the surface, Buizel was blown up through the hole at the base of the giant oak tree that was Team J's rescue base. He landed in front of it on soft soil, warmed by the light of day. It was shady where he was standing, the noon sun above casting the tree's shadow right below it's branches. He walked out of the shade and glanced around the ringed clearing that their base stood in. Or, more accurately, grew in.

Zorua had cast an illusion around herself to look like Cyndaquil, and she was busy mirroring his every move while the Fire-type grew more agitated at her antics.

"Heeheeheehee!" Zorua giggled.

Buizel sighed as he watched the two youngest teammates playing. He wished he could stay instead of leaving for Sinnoh Home. _I don't want to go… _he thought.

* * *

Eevee shut the door to her room with a gentle click.

_Buizel's leaving,_ she thought in dismay. _And what am I going to do with two hyperactive kids and Sirai's glitching to manage? _The thought made her groan out loud, flopping onto her bed._ I'm going to die,_ she thought miserably, staring at the blackness all around her. She almost reached for the light switch before realizing that the power was out. Cursing, she tried to get off the bed and crashed to the floor, tripping over her spare rescue scarf.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, the lights clicked back on. The crystals that grew through the base like ivy lit up with their friendly blue-green glow. The three white, globular, semi-liquid ceiling lamps that hung down, arranged in a triangle, were revived. Then, everything flickered for a moment, the base was engulfed in darkness for a second, and then the lights were back on.

That brief moment of darkness would make anyone wonder, "Hey, who turned out the lights?". But this time, after the flickering, the crystals no longer held that same comforting blue-green glow, instead, they were a dull orange.

Eevee picked herself up and kicked the spare rescue scarf underneath her bed in disgust. Something about the room seemed a little different than the last time she had seen it with the lights on. Ignoring that, she pushed open the door and padded down the stairs. Hearing voices from outside, she looked out of one of the few windows in the living room.

"Lights are back on," she remarked to the two Cyndaquils, one of whom immediately flickered.

The two looked up at her, and the one who had flickered revealed herself to be Zorua. "Really? Great!" She then glanced around the clearing, her mouth open as if to shout something out to a friend, but then closed it in confusion. "Hey, where's Buizel? I saw him a minute ago." She said.

The entire circle around their base was devoid of anyone besides Zorua and Cyndaquil.

* * *

Up above, high in the air, Buizel was riding one of the Staravia flock that served as transportation for the rescue team. He looked down, and could just barely make out the giant oak tree that was home. _Off to Sinnoh Home now…_ He sighed.


	3. Chapter 3 -- Memory

**short chapter here. i did a bit of touching up, but this chapter was all rio ;D hmm... what's happening here? you'll find out!**

**also, i'd like to give a shout out to "someone"- i can't pm you, but we really appreciate your lovely reviews! :"D same to all you other lovely followers. thank you so much for supporting takeoff!**

**enjoy~**

* * *

She woke up in a soft, one-person bed with a green blanket and fluffy white pillow. _Ugh… what happened? _She tried to think of how she'd gotten there, only to realize that she had no memories. Sitting up too quickly made her lose her balance and tumble onto the floor. Panicking, she stood up, looking around the bedroom wildly, trying to recognize something, anything at all. The messy bed? No. The television at the opposite wall? Nope. The white closet door? Nothing. The full-length mirror perpendicular to the television? Zero, zilch, nada, nothing. Not even the wooden floorboards seemed familiar.

She sat down on the messy bedcovers, taking a deep breath. There was a flickering image in the corner of her eye, next to a small house plant in a corner. She looked at it, and it formed into the image of a floating, pink, kitten-like thing. No, wait, there was a name for what it was...Digimon? No that wasn't it… Oh! Pokémon! The floating pink thing was a Pokémon!

"Hi." It said, a thin tail that was as tall as it was waved behind it.

"Er… hi." she responded cautiously. The Pokémon didn't seem to be out to hurt her. But wait, weren't Pokémon just imaginary things in a video game?

"You don't remember anything, but I'd suggest you go take a look in the mirror." It gestured with its short arms. "Go on."

She blinked at it for a moment, very confused and slightly afraid, but did as she was told and wandered over to the mirror, which was opposite a staircase going downwards that she hadn't noticed before.

Looking into the reflective surface, she saw herself. A twelve-ish girl with straight, auburn hair going down just a little past her shoulders and and bright, almost sky-blue eyes, unusually light-colored. Her face was nothing special, shaped like a delicate pixie's with a somewhat pale skin color. She was a little short for her —apparent— age. She was wearing pale blue pajamas, almost white, and a sky blue bath robe. Her feet were clad in white socks; noticing them, she wiggled her feet a little.

She spotted a pair of blue slippers next to the mirror that matched her bath robe, and slipped her feet in them. Next to the slippers was a small hairpin, with a series of blue, rectangles added on the pin as decoration, somewhat reminiscent of a Pokémon gym badge. Or computer screens? She clipped it on to keep her hair out of her eyes and glanced back to the Pokémon in the corner of the room.

And then— she remembered.

Her uncle had just moved in, to take care of her after she'd been released from the mental hospital. The bedroom she was in was hers. She'd gone to the hospital for treatment, because of an imaginary friend that she didn't like— Mew, that was the name. The Pokémon she currently saw floating in her room. It bothered her a lot, but less than the doctors and therapists who she'd had to see at the hospital. She decided not to mention Mew to her uncle, in case she got sent to the hospital again.

She had a large house that used to belong to her parents before they died, but was given to her uncle if he agreed to take care of her. What was his name? Devon. Uncle Devon. He liked to be called Dev, though, so that it rhymed with "Steve". He was kind of weird, but not a bad guy. Not bad at all. She was _happy _to be living with him.

She had friends, who lived in houses nearby. Looking out the second-story window of her bedroom, she could see some of their homes. One of them painted a darker blue than her own house was, another painted reddish-pink, and another green. She remembered that the Solak sisters, a set of triplets, lived in a cream colored house on the other side of her own, and that their family had been given their cousin's property across the street, after he'd died.

There was still something missing from her memory, though… Her own name. She still couldn't remember her name. Stupid hospital treatment. What kind of idiots thought giving her temporary amnesia would get rid of that awful mirage that was her imaginary "friend"? She hoped it'd wear off soon.

Looking at the empty shelves next to the television that had once housed her video games, she sighed. She remembered her uncle confiscating them. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Sinnoh Home had been her favorite video game series. She had had an awful lot of those games. But, her uncle had taken them all, saying that they were bad for her. _Hmph._

He'd grounded her too. Stuck in her own room indefinitely. Pfft, she was half-convinced he'd just taken her games to play with them himself. At least she could still watch television. Her favorite program was an anime based off of the PMD (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon) series. It was mega-popular, and it was always on somewhere. She grabbed the remote from under her bed and sat down on the mattress. Clicking the TV on, she leaned comfortably against her pillows and watched as an image appeared. It was of the bedroom of a member of her favorite rescue squad, Team J. She'd modeled one of her teams in the PMD games off of them.

Eevee was on the floor of her room, apparently having fallen off her bed. The lights flickered, and then came back on, the crystals a dim orange now. The Evolution Pokémon didn't seem to notice or care about the difference, instead leaving the room and shouting out the window to two other members of the team, Zorua and Cyndaquil.

"Lights are back on." the Normal-type remarked.

The girl watching the program was very interested. This was a brand new episode! Maybe she'd finally find out what was wrong with the base's AI, who'd been glitching and having problems in the past few episodes. So far, it seemed like the new season was all about Sirai. Wait, there was something about that name that had her grinning…

What was it?

That awful nuisance of a hallucination, Mew, settled down next to her. She did her best to ignore it while thinking.

Oh! She remembered now. She'd been laughing her lungs out when she found out what the Sinnoh region base's AI had been named. Sirai.

_Ha! _she thought. _What're the odds of Sinnoh Home's AI sharing my name? _

After all, the temporary amnesiac had just remembered her own name. Honnis. Sirai Honnis.

* * *

**rio wanted to talk to y'all ;p**

**AN from rioludoodle: Hello everyone, Rio here! Just here to say that this chapter was heavily inspired by the Doctor Who episodes "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead". Credit to Steven Moffat. If you've seen the episodes, you'll recognize a lot of similarities… Spoilers! ;) **


	4. Chapter 4 -- Astray

Buizel stood in front of a desk, tapping his foot impatiently. Rio was behind the desk searching the messy papers for one file in particular.

Buizel's work assignment.

He'd just recently arrived at Sinnoh Home, and had been directed to his friend Rio to get a lab and work assignment. There were many labs in Sinnoh HQ, after all, that was where Tech Division did all their research and development.

And it was just his luck that Rio happened to lose his assignment file.

The Water-type glanced around the room, refamiliarizing himself with the Sinnoh Home environment. Rio's small, rarely used desk was standard-issue, like all the others in the other cubicles. The two of them were in a massive, even-busier-than-usual circular room. Two-thirds of the wall was actually made up of enormous windows, sunlight streaming through and clouds visible outside. The leftover third of the room was one hallway entrance after another, several of them leading to docking bays, like the one he'd landed in.

The ceiling was slightly curved, and made of shiny, white-painted chrome, just like the walls and floor. And the cubicles. Each office cubicle had at least one Pokémon rushing about inside, searching for lost papers, important mission documents, the latest developments with Sirai's glitching, and, for the most part, another cup of coffee.

_Sinnoh Home, sweet home._ Buizel thought wryly, with an ironic twist to his grimace. Busier than usual because of the glitching, but other than that, same old Sinnoh Home. _There's something impressive about the madness of this place. Besides the fact that we're a good twelve to fifteen kilometers above the ground._

Indeed they were. Sinnoh Home was no stereotypical underground base. Or even a tree-based Rescue Team Base. Sinnoh Home was a flying fortress, hidden in the clouds and living in the stratosphere. Even the aquatic transports that Rescue Home maintained in the ocean were hardly remarkable compared to the regional home bases. Sinnoh's headquarters just so happened to be one of the newer flying ones.

If you were to look at it from the outside and above the clouds, you'd see a gleaming silver-white dome with a row of tall, polished windows and great, fantastical wings with propellers, something brought to life out of science fiction. Of course, it'd be a little difficult to make out Sinnoh Home from the actual cloud (generated by the enormous construct's cloud engines). Even the windows would just reflect light to seem invisible.

If you were to look at Sinnoh Home from outside and on the ground, you'd see a lazy, slow-drifting cloud, shaped vaguely like a city as a result of excess steam being released out of engine pipes at irregular intervals. In fact, if you overlaid an image of that city-cloud on top of a bar graph of engine temperature, they'd look very similar.

Buizel was thinking about this as he waited. Eventually, that train of thought grew dull, and he instead decided to bother Rio about getting back to Team J's base.

"Just so we're clear," Buizel began irritably. "I'm only staying here for the absolute minimum time required in the rule book. Three hours. And if that time started when I landed on the base, right now I've got an hour and a half left of being here."

Rio ignored him, grabbing a few sheets of paper that seemed to be what he was looking for and stuffing them in a manilla folder.

"Are you listening?" Buizel asked, uncharacteristically annoyed. "I'm going back to my team's base in an hour and a half-"

Rio still ignored him, grunting in response while grabbing a pen and writing something on the folder.

"No more than that." Buizel demanded huffily and, it must be said, in a rather Eevee-like manner. "That is the minimum amount that any field agent is required to work at Sinnoh Home in a non-emergency but still time-sensitive situation. I won't stay here any longer than I have to."

Rio held the folder out to him, Buizel's name and ID number scribbled messily on the corner, and an ID card on top. He smiled knowingly and somewhat smugly as he replied. "Just take a look at your assignment before you say any more."

Buizel stuck the ID card in his rescue scarf and opened the folder, looking at the paper that had his lab assignment on it. "VISION lab?!" he exclaimed excitedly, all trace of annoyance abruptly gone. "They actually completed the VISION lab project!"

Rio's cheerful grin was somewhat self-congratulatory as he responded. "Yup. So, how long are you planning on being here again?"

"Erm…" Buizel seemed hesitant, conflicted between going back home to his teammates and staying longer to play with new tech. "Well… I suppose a few days here won't make a difference in the long run."

"Good." Rio replied. "Now get going to the tech labs!" He shooed the Water-type away.

As Buizel walked down one of the hallways, passing several small Steel-types rushing about, he mused on Rio's choice of lab for him. W_hy is it that the cheerful ones are always so manipulative? Ah, well. I can't believe they completed the VISION project! Wonder how the rest of the team's doing…_

* * *

Zorua sneezed as she bounced on her bed. "Hey! Sirai!" she called out, waiting for a friendly reply as usual.

"What is it?" Sirai's voice echoed around the room. It wasn't the same voice Team J was familiar with though; this voice was flatter, colder, crueler. Like someone had replaced Sirai with Hunter J.

Zorua, while oblivious to quite a few things, picked up on this. She suddenly stopped bouncing, a worried and very confused expression flitting across her face. "Sirai?" she asked tentatively. "You alright?"

"Of course. What is it that you want?" The AI's voice was just as icy as before. Formal as well.

_Great._ Zorua thought sarcastically. _Sirai's turned into a mix of Hunter J and Karai. What's wrong with her?_

"Er, nothing." Zorua replied to the AI. "I forget what it was." She bounded to the door, and, expecting it to slide open as usual, didn't expect to slam into it face first. "Ow!" she exclaimed, rubbing her nose. "Sirai! What's with the door?"

Sirai's voice echoed around in the room when the response finally came. "My apologies. I expected you to know how to open a door manually." Instead of the joking tone and false British accent Sirai would've normally used after a prank, her voice was instead mocking and falsely submissive.

Zorua grumbled under her breath while pulling open the door manually and running down the hallway. _Something's really wrong. I've gotta find Buiz-wait, Buizel's not here. Alright, Eevee then. She's got to know something about Sinnoh tech. Well, more than me at any rate._

Eevee was pacing back and forth in her own room, muttering under her breath.

"Zorua, don't pound the floor down," she yelled, hearing the Dark-type's footsteps, but it was only half-hearted. The Normal-type was distracted by other things.

There was a shout of "Ow!", some angry muttering, and then the door to Eevee's room was pulled open by Zorua. The illusionist ran up to the Normal-type and whispered into Eevee's ear. "We really really-really-_really_ need to talk! Now! Outside the base! It's about Sirai!"

Eevee hesitated. She opened her mouth, about to snap something about not pulling pranks, when she caught a glimpse of the look in Zorua's eye._ This is serious._

Without a word, she followed Zorua out of the base.

"What is it?" she said in a low voice, facing the smaller Pokémon once they were out of the base. Eevee was starting to get really worried now. _Buizel's barely even been gone, and we're already apparently having issues! Just my luck!_

Zorua glanced around with narrowed eyes, warily watching the giant oak that was their base. She loved that tree and all it meant, but the new Sirai… Zorua had barely talked to the AI, but it was already obvious that something was very, very wrong.

The Dark-type whispered hastily, paranoid that the base's AI could be listening in. "Sirai's gone wrong." She paused, but before Eevee could give a snarky reply, Zorua continued. "It's not just the glitches, it's her… personality. She's not the Sirai we know."

A hollow gust of wind blew through the clearing and the rumbling echo of a crack of thunder was heard. Looking up at the mostly blue sky, the two members of Team J could see a tall, gray, lightning cloud towering over the horizon. A storm was coming.

"Ugh, the weather looks horrid," Eevee mumbled under her breath before turning back to Zorua. "Are you sure…" She paused. "Are you sure it's not just another prank of hers? Or maybe it's got something to do with the work they're doing at Sinnoh Home?" _Why would there be any reason for Sirai to go wrong? She technically doesn't have a personality… does she? It's just… extremely realistic programming…?_ She shivered as a cold wind ripped through her fur. _At any rate, as long as she's functioning okay it'll be alright. For now._

"We should get inside," Eevee said, putting a protective paw around Zorua and guiding her back into the base. The wind slammed the camouflaged hatch closed behind them, louder than Eevee would have liked. "Look, I'll have a talk with Sirai myself later, okay? Now run along."

* * *

Zorua pouted in an old, unused, odd-smelling room. "Pfft! 'Run along', she says. I'm not a baby Pokémon!" She didn't want to go back to her own bedroom. Not with Sirai the way she was. The usually upbeat Pokémon was in a dark mood. She wasn't even sure which room of the base she was in. Glancing around, the Dark-type noticed shelves. Bookshelves to be exact. And they all appeared to be empty.

The room was carved out of the wood of the tree, like all the rest, but the shelves… they were derelict, ignored. Not neglected though, they were kept clean and dust-free, likely thanks to Buizel, the resident cleaning maid. Zorua didn't particularly like to read, but she didn't like lonely places. And this empty library was, if anything at all, lonely.

She was curious though, and poked her head around several desolate shelves.

* * *

The floor creaked. "Eeeek!" Zorua jumped, before telling herself off for acting like Cyndaquil. She shook her head off to get rid of the lingering shadows of fear. Zorua looked at the creaky spot on the floor. Silence in the library. she thought sarcastically. Then, she noticed that the creaky spot was actually a square wooden tile. That's weird. Nothing's cut out in this base… It all just grows here.

Nosing the niche open, Zorua shoved the tile to the side. In the square hole was a neat, Sirai-blue book.

_'Sinnoh Rescue Artificial Intelligence - A History, A Mystery'_

Eevee padded down the hallway, a little uneasy despite herself. _I wonder… what Zorua was going on about…_ She tried to put the matter out of her head, as she did with most other unpleasant things. _Anyways, I hope she's okay._

Going around the base, Eevee methodically closed all the windows in preparation for what looked like it was going to become a huge storm. Outside, she could faintly hear the Staravia calling to each other urgently. The base seemed very silent all of a sudden, even though raindrops had begun to patter against the leaves outside the base, making a lonely percussionistic sound. Eevee sighed and pulled the curtains shut with a needlessly harsh snap.

She knew she shouldn't have blown Zorua off that way, but… but she just couldn't take it anymore. Buizel was the parent, not her. For all their capability and maturity, she found herself treating Cyndaquil and Zorua like little kids every once in a while. It was stressful, having them come to her with their problems; Buizel had always been the one that they would go to. Eevee had felt a little sad that they never confided in her._ Idiot that I was._

Turning away from the window, she was startled by a loud creak. It sounded like it was coming from somewhere deeper inside the base. She hesitated for a moment.

"This old place must be falling apart," she muttered. "What the heck was that?

But, being Eevee, she disregarded the odd sound, unaware of what was being discovered.


	5. Chapter 5 -- Secrets

Cyndaquil wandered around the base aimlessly, listening to the rain patter outside. The wet atmosphere made him uncomfortable, and he missed Buizel, and he couldn't find Zorua anywhere. Rainy days were usually fun, even for him, but today was just dreary and depressing.

"Sirai?" he asked, looking around the empty hallway. Maybe the AI would play a board game with him, or discuss battle strategies, or something like that.

"May I help you with something?" a cool voice answered politely.

"Sirai…?" Cyndaquil asked nervously. Is this some kind of joke…? "Are you there?"

"Yes, Cyndaquil," said Sirai sarcastically, the screen popping up in front of him. "May I help you with something?" the AI repeated.

"Uhmm... uh…" Sirai's disconcerting unfriendliness had thrown Cyndaquil completely off. "I thought maybe we could… I dunno, discuss something? Battle strategies?"

"If you wish," replied Sirai tonelessly. A 3D model of Cyndaquil popped up onscreen and rotated around. "Your pressure points are your paw pads and your nose; as a Fire type you are weak to Water and Rock types mainly. To counter these types, you will need to use effective Physical attacks against them. Suggestions: Tackle or Headbutt, at your level. Taking into consideration your below-average physical strength…"

"Stop!" interrupted Cyndaquil abruptly, feeling sick. _What the heck? Sirai…_

"As you wish," said the AI, closing down the screen. "What else may I help you with?"

Cyndaquil blinked, terror rising slowly in him. He backed away slowly, then turned and scampered away down the hallway. When he looked back, the blue screen was still hovering in the hallway. Cyndaquil fled.

He found himself in front of the library door when he turned the corner. The library was pretty much his place; neither Zorua nor Eevee liked to read, and Buizel relied mostly on Sirai to get information. Cyndaquil, however, had always loved books, maps, traditional writings, and stories most of all. He dreamed of filling up the empty shelves with rows of books someday. The library was barely used, but it was quiet and nobody ever went in. He opened the door.

To his surprise, there was somebody already inside. Cyndaquil blinked, trying to register the unfamiliar image with his mind.

"Zorua?" he asked in disbelief.

The Dark-type was squinting at the first page of a large, heavy book. She turned her head one way then another, and even turned the book upside-down.

She didn't turn her head at Cyndaquil's voice, focusing on the confusing pages.

"Get over here."

She scratched her head at the jumble of blurry words and indecipherable diagrams. It was a headache. Whatever the book was, it was probably Buizel's.

* * *

Speaking of the Water-type, Buizel was standing just outside a holographic blue screen that was the door to VISION labs. _Wow…_ he thought. _They actually finished it._

He swiped a card through the scanner on the wall and the hologram disappeared, giving him permission to enter. Incredibly excited, he stepped through the gleaming silver doorway to see… absolute chaos.

Pokemon techies were running all over the place, doing things from pacing the room in a mad scramble to corralling flying-literally flying- discs. The room was a mess, the rows of sleek silver chairs toppled and holoscreens flying every which way, occasionally crashing into each other before moving on.

"What happened here?!" Buizel exclaimed.

A frantic Smeargle carrying a burnt-out disc stopped to answer him. "It's awful! Neeaaahhhhh!" she gasped out. "We were locked outta the system for hours, a-a-and we just got back in- and all the memory's gone! It's gone! It's GONE! And so's THE BACKUP! AND THE BACKUP OF THE BACKUP! IT'S GOONNNNNEEE! Neeaaahhhh!"

Buizel blinked. "What?!" he yelped as the realization set in.

Smeargle nodded in reply before rapidly hyperventilating and passing out on the floor, the disc flipping into the air before bouncing off her head and landing next to her.

_Where's the techie head when you need him?!_ Buizel ran back out into the hallway to find a certain Pokemon.

* * *

Back at the base, two Pokemon were in a musty, largely unused library, staring at a thick book.

Cyndaquil ran his paw lightly over the smooth pages, staring at the diagrams. It seemed like a fairly recent book, judging by the technological drawings and terms. He noticed a strange square-shaped hole in the ground near Zorua. Is that where this came from? The text was dense, but pretty understandable, although out of context. What was this about? He took the cover and flipped it, eyebrows raising in surprise as he saw the title.

"This… is about Sirai?" he asked in disbelief. "Oh- about Sirai- have you noticed anything… _weird_ about her lately…? Today?" He glanced sideways at Zorua.

The echoing drumroll of the rain was rather eerie in the library. Zorua would've blurted out an answer if it weren't for the sounds that reminded her. The sounds that reminded her that Sirai was everywhere in the base. Even in the library.

"Sirai? Pssh, no." Zorua laughed the question off. "You're just imagining things, Cyn. Or does the thunderstorm scare the ickle Fire-type?" she teased.

While talking to Cyndaquil, her front paw was tapping on the ground. Just slightly, and so quietly you'd have to be right in front of her to notice over the rain.

_Tap tap tap. Tap… Tap… tap… Tap tap tap._

S.O.S.

Cyndaquil raised one eyebrow slightly and looked at the ground, a little hurt by the tease. A flicker of movement caught his eye and he immediately focused on Zorua's tapping paw. She wasn't tapping rhythmically, as she usually did when she was bored or nervous. This… was a pattern.

* * *

"Knowing Morse code is important when you're a rescue team member," explained Eevee, spreading out a chart with several dot-dash patterns on it. "If you're a technology freak like Buizel, you can use it for programming and whatnot, but mostly rescue team members use it in the field for sending messages without being detected by the enemy." She glanced ever so slightly at Zorua. "Subtlety is important," she said meaningfully.

* * *

Cyndaquil recognized the basic pattern of taps right away. _S. O. S…!_ Quickly looking away from Zorua's foot, he laughed sheepishly.

"Eh, you're probably right," he said. "Hey, Zorua, by the way… don't you think that maybe your Meema would like some company today?"

"Yeah, totally!" Zorua nodded rapidly, but then froze. Her face fell. "Dang it though, it's raining!"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Cyndaquil said airily. "I have an idea…"

A few minutes later, two small Pokemon were making their way across the grass, each toting a huge, glossy leaf above their heads.

"Don't stay out too late!" hollered Eevee from the door, shaking her head. _I wonder what this is all about? All of a sudden they're out the door… they barely even said goodbye!_ She shrugged and turned away. _Whatever floats their boat…_

The two Pokemon ran through the forest, ducking under low branches, leaping over logs and stones, and occasionally splashing each other in puddles. Zorua was in the lead, and both of them soon arrived at an oddly shaped cove.

It was basically a depression in the earth, about fifteen feet deeper than the land surrounding the hole. The cove was also guarded by large, rocky outcroppings that ringed around the area. It was an odd piece of terrain for sure, but what really made it incredible was the inside. Inside the cove was a tall, tall tree. Not incredibly big and wide like a rescue base tree, but amazingly, fantastically tall. So tall, that it's branches rose just slightly above the rest of the forest, even while it's base was rooted a good fifteen feet lower. And from those branches hung vines, lots and lots of vines.

Those vines were draped through the great branches and over the boulders that ringed the cove, creating a sort of hollow space inside that was kept shady and dry. The vines caught and cupped rainwater, which eventually flowed into a small water basin located next to the tall tree inside. It would've been fantastic real estate, chock full of Pokemon, if not for the fact that two-thirds of the cove was shadowed in complete darkness, thanks to the vine blanket above.

Fortunately, though, Zoroark didn't mind the dark.

Cyndaquil followed Zorua, who had gone in first, cautiously lighting up a spark to show the way into Zoroark's home. He didn't think there would be much to burn, what with the rain outside, but nevertheless he was careful as he wove into the cave.

"Okay," he whispered, glancing once nervously out at the rain as he lowered the broad leaf to the ground. "I think we're good. Where's Zoroark?" He wasn't sure whether to confide in Zorua's Meema or not. _Zoroark wouldn't tell anyone, though._

The two of them were in a more brightly lit patch of Zoroark's home, if a little damper. Zorua glanced around and listened carefully for any sign of her adopted mother, but found none. She twitched her nose irritatedly and crossed over to the dark side. Of the cove, that is.

The little Dark-type came back out chewing on a mouthful of Oran Berries.

"I d'ink 'e's 'on 'oo 'ik or'n 'erries! 'Ere's on'wy a 'ew 'eft!" she said.

Cyndaquil stared at her. "...What?" he asked doubtfully, watching blue juice dribble down Zorua's chin. "She went to pick berries?" He was used to Zorua's talking with her mouth full, but he still occasionally had trouble decoding her cryptic mumblings.

"Mm-hmm!" Zorua nodded, still chewing her mouthful of oran berries. Thankfully, she swallowed before continuing. "Well, we can talk here."

Zorua glanced around them, double-checking for eavesdroppers, before reaching into her rescue pack (scarf) and pulling out a small, flat, silver disc. At Cyndaquil's curious look, she tossed it open with a quick flick of her wrist, hidden flaps expanding outwards to make a larger silver disc.

"It's one of Buizel's tinkering inventions." she explained. "I swiped it from his geek closet."

The little thief proceeded to tap the silver disc directly in the center. An image appeared on the shiny grey surface, looking just like a reflection, though looking up there was nothing above but the layer of vines. The image was of a book cover. The same book cover that the two new recruits had seen hidden in the library.

"I figure if we can't lug that brick out here, we can lug that digitized brick out here!" Zorua exclaimed proudly.

"That's clever," said Cyndaquil, impressed, as he stared at the silver disc. His stomach turned uncomfortably at the idea of stealing, but he shook the feeling away. Now was not the time to be worrying about that; they had bigger things to worry about. He looked from the device up at Zorua, becoming serious. "So, you have noticed Sirai acting… different," he said.

"Mm-hmm." Zorua nodded. "Right after the lights turned on. She acts weird now, like she's only talking to us because she has to. But anyway, lets get back to reading this thing! I managed to get that disc to copy almost everything in that book! And before you say anything-it's not stealing if you put it back."

Said disc laid on the ground between them, and Zorua swiped a paw over the image of the book, the cover turning open.

Also ignoring Zorua's definition of "not stealing", Cyndaquil flipped past the first couple of pages of bibliography and began to read at top speed. It was the foreword that came just before the table of contents.

"...a significantly higher percentage of UNIQUE… what does that mean? Oh… Unprogrammed New Interactions, Qualities of Unknown Emergence…" Cyndaquil turned the page and read on. "Data origin unknown…?"

Zorua, squinting at the page, nodded along as Cyndaquil read and asked questions neither of them knew the answer to. When they reached the bottom of that page, she nodded and mm-hmm'd. Then, she took a deep breath.

"What the heck does that mean?!" she blurted out.

At the shrug she received, Zorua harrumphed and looked to the page at the right, which contained only a few blocks of words, squinting to read again.

"And so… I, as the leader of the research team responsible for it's creation, have volunteered with my closest friend and co-leader of the team for…"

She paused, and blinked uncertainly. "I can't read it. All the rest is blocked out, like swears. The only thing that isn't is the last word..."

Cyndaquil hesitated before asking, almost warily. "What's the last word…?"

"Goodbye."

* * *

** AN: **Rio here! I'm helping Quill re-post this chapter. So sorry about before, but it's fixed now!


	6. Chapter 6 -- Reality

**another lovely chapter by Rio, written from Sirai's POV! mysteries, mysteries...**

**the shows briefly mentioned in this chapter belong to their respective owners ^^**

**enjoy!**

* * *

The twelve-year-old girl known as Sirai Honnis watched her television attentively. Her favorite program in the whole wide world was on! And a brand new episode too - heck, it seemed like they were marathoning new episodes. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table.

_9:56 A.M._

Sirai turned back to the television and paid close attention to the current episode.

On screen, Eevee grumpily marched past a doorway Zorua had gone through just moments ago, and a creaking sound was heard. The Normal-type paused for a moment and glanced around, but dismissed the noise and moved on. The screen zoomed in on the closed doors, and the point of view shifted.

Suddenly, a library was shown, a library with empty shelves. Rows upon rows of desolate bookshelves, the entire room gave off a lonely, empty vibe, even without the eerie music. The tune was a little cheesy, but added greatly to the general feel of the new setting.

_Ooh!_ Sirai leaned forward on her mattress, eagerly awaiting whatever was going to happen next._ I never knew there was a library in Team J's base!_

Her awful imaginary _friend_ floated next to her on the bed, and Sirai continued ignoring the disturbing hallucination.

Cyndaquil wandered into view on the television screen, and as he walked past a narrow space between two shelves, his head turned to the side and he jumped in surprise. Then, the episode cut out and a commercial for PMD-themed trading cards came on.

Sirai scowled. _Great. Of course now's the time for a commercial break._

She grabbed the remote at her side and flipped through other channels randomly. There had to be something decent on somewhere.

-Bzzt!-

A cartoon appeared onscreen.

_"Ooooooooh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea-"_

-Bzzt!-

A weather report. Oh, joy.

_"And now for the weather report with Anna."_

_"Thank you, Sandy. It's clear skies today, and partly cloudy this afternoon, though that'll clear up again by 8 o'clock tonight. Tomorrow-"_

-Bzzt!-

Some BBC show. Oh, was this Doctor Who?

_"The main command code."_

_"It's a little girl! CAL is a little girl plugged into the mainframe of a computer-why wasn't I told about this? I. Needed. To. Know. This!"_

Meh, seen it.

-Bzzt!-

Oooh, commercial for the upcoming Mystery Dungeon movie!

_"Eevee's story, her history, her life before Team J gained it's new recruits- her mystery. All revealed in _'Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: The Beginning of Rescue Team J',_ at a theater near you! Coming soon…"_

Pfft. Still no release date, of course. Seriously, what was wrong with the co-directors?

-Bwoop.-

She turned the television off, still completely ignoring the Mew floating next to her. She didn't even look in the pokemon's direction. Sirai plopped herself down on her bed, head against the pillow and back flat on the mattress. The girl turned her head to look out the window, and saw clear blue skies outside.

_Well, that's boring._ she scoffed lazily. I_t's only nice when there's clouds._

Sirai glanced around the room, still refusing to look in her imaginary friend's direction, before her gaze paused on the staircase leading down from her attic bedroom. Maybe going downstairs would help, forget what her uncle said about staying in her room. And Mew didn't appear as often outside of her bedroom for some reason.

She could get away. Away from that hallucination, that awful mirage, that twistedly innocent-looking figment of her imagination. That evil, wretched image. That despicable, antagonizing fiend. That monster and its poison-spun, rose-tinted, horrible, illogically terrifying words.

And that was the worst part of it all, the part that had convinced her to willingly accept the amnesia treatment. The words… The friendly, silvery, light-as-a-feather words. The illogically terrifying stories they told.

Illogical terror.

That was a horribly accurate way of putting it.

The words, the story, the very idea that they told her each time she heard them was terrifying and horrifying on a level at her core. Against all logic, the venomously kind speeches that might've been a lousy prank terrified Sirai.

Phobia.

That was another accurate way of putting it.

An illogical fear… One that had always been in her heart, but had never been consciously noticed until her imaginary "friend" went from being a playful dream to a mentally disordered reality.

Was it really just three weeks ago? Just three weeks before that the imaginary figment had started appearing at odd intervals? It felt like so much longer.

The doctors and psychologists at the clinic she'd lived in for two and a half weeks didn't have a real name for it. The phobia. Her phobia. Apparently they'd never heard of something like it before. Of course they hadn't, seeing how the idea of it was just something out of science fiction. Something impossible, something that made no sense whatsoever to be afraid of in real life.

But then again, that was the thing. Real life. One of the doctors, a funny, frizzy-haired old man who'd taken Latin in college, had jokingly given a name to her phobia.

Veritaphobia.

Fear of true reality, if you wanted to translate it more literally. But specifically, it was her fear. Her most heart-felt terror. Her fear, that her reality wasn't real. That she wasn't real. And that awful, terrible figment of twisted imagination only aggravated things. The idea that-

Oh. Of course. The devil speaks.

Mew, floating next to her innocently, like it belonged right there side-by-side with her, said kindly. "I'm trying to help you, but you have to let me first."

Help her. Yeah, _right_. She needed the hallucination's help like she needed a memory wipe.

Sirai acted as though Mew wasn't there. She turned her head to look out the window, first at her friends's houses, and then at the blank, sunny-as-sunshine blue sky. Then, she looked at the empty shelf where her video games had once been. From a psychologist's standpoint, she supposed she could see the idea. Her imaginary "friend" came from the video game series she so adored, so, logically, taking them away might prevent a relapse.

That was crap. All it did was make her bored. At least they hadn't thought to take away her television.

Her worst enemy, her own imaginary character, continued. "I know it's hard for you to accept. But you really have to understand. The dreams, the games, everything. It's real, all of it. This world is fake, this world is wrong. The imaginary is real. The world is wrong!"

At those last words, Sirai snapped and her grasp on sanity teetered. "No, it's not! It's not! It isn't-It isn't true! Stop it!" Her face was scrunched up, and a few fearful tears dripped down her cheeks.

When Sirai started crying, Mew floated backwards, and slowly disappeared. It was a frizzy sort of disappearance, like a television getting static. Or if she wanted to stick with the PMD theme, a holoscreen flickering out.

Sirai quietly sobbed to herself, wrapping her arms around her knees for any measure of comfort she could find.

"Not true… Not right…" she whispered, trying to counsel herself. "I know I'm real… I'm happy here… The world is real…"

Of course… sometimes, she imagined things. Wondered what would happen next in her video games or the PMD anime. And then, those things would come true. Like how she had joked over the phone with her friends about Eevee having a diary, and then that quiet little season finale came around the next day. The one with Eevee muttering to herself and writing in a book in her room. What was written wasn't shown clearly, but the implications of the normal-type having a log were plenty clear enough.

Just like she'd talked about. It was just a silly coincidence though, wasn't it? A twelve-year-old fangirl had no power over what a massive company decided to do with its franchise. It was just the most recent in a strange series of coincidences.

_Heck,_ she thought. _Maybe Buizel's got a log too. It'd suit him, I guess._

She took a deep breath in, and breathed out again. In. Out. In. Out. Sirai was nearly calm again. The doctors had said listing facts might help her. Along with keeping a journal. Picking up a notebook and pencil on her bedside table, Sirai decided she could start with both.

Journal Entry 1 - May 22

_First off, this is not a diary. Those are stupid. This is a journal, or a log, like Eevee's._

_My name is Sirai Honnis. I'm twelve years old. I have a mental disorder who named itself 'Mew'. It looks like the pokemon too. I don't like it. I hate it. No, bad Sirai, stop thinking about it._

_My uncle Devon is staying with me right now, since my parents can't. I was just released from the T.D. Hospital. A lot of the doctors there… were not kind. No, don't think about them either._

_I'm supposed to write down what I think, honestly, in here. It's supposed to help me, I guess. But now that I'm done with the fact-listing, I dunno what I'm supposed to write._

_Sirai Honnis, signing off_

Journal Entry 2 - May 22

_It's only been twenty minutes since the last one, but I feel like this should be a completely separate entry. I finally figured out that the first thing I should write about in this log is my family._

_My uncle's here with me right now, but I have a mom. She's with my dad. Well, my step-dad at any rate. I don't like to think of my other dad. Anyways, back to my step-dad._

_He's a scatter-brained guy who works with technology. Always losing his glasses and forgetting where he left his notes. They're usually in his pockets. I love him, I suppose, even though… even though he's never there. Always busy with his work. Never any time for me, not since he got that promotion five years ago. I only seem to see him on weekends. I hate him, I suppose, for that. We're still family though. Or, we were, at least._

_My mom is hard-core. She's awesome, but she's there to listen to me even less than dad is. Mom is smart, and sarcastic, and… well, I can compare her to the character River Song really easily. Smooth-talking, not afraid of danger, almost always smiling, and just a little psycho in a nice way. I look up to her. Well, I looked up to her._

_They were two people I could imagine Sinnoh Home's Sirai being programmed by. My friends are always saying I act like her, so I figure her creators would've been like the two people who raised me. I wish they weren't dead._

_Uncle Devon is really nice. He comes off as a little dominating, and all-business, but he sets time aside for me. That's nice, and more than I've gotten from most adults. Besides that, I don't really know him all that well yet._

_My parents never talked about him, but then again, they never talked to me about anything anyways. I've been told both that I'm too bitter about it to be healthy, and that I'm unhealthily distant from it all. Sometimes I hate both of them, and sometimes I wouldn't care if they died. Well, that's what they wound up doing anyways._

_I hate them for leaving me. I don't care either way that they're dead. The psychologists said I'm lying to myself on one of those statements, but they can't figure out which. Neither can I._

_Geez, my life is messed up. No wonder I'm hallucinating that Mew._

_I'm gonna head downstairs for a snack. Be back later._

_Sirai Honnis, signing off._

**AN: Hey, Rio here! :) I just want to say that you should expect more journal entries when Sirai's POV comes up from now on. **


End file.
